SETI scientists have often discussed, if we detect an extraterrestrial civilization, it will likely be much older than we are. The reasoning is simple. If civilizations are capable of interstellar communication for only a few decades before they self-destruct, then it’s very unlikely that extraterrestrial and human civilizations will exist at the same time, given the billions of years during which life has had to emerge in our galaxy. If, however, ET is much, much older than we are, we still have a chance of making contact even if intelligent life is quite rare in our galaxy. But, this assumes some things that may or may not be true. It assumes that an advanced civilization would want to Contact us. It assumes that only an advanced civilization would seek to contact us. It also assumes that First Contact would be by specially setup communication means.
Yet, right this moment out to 60 light years we have signals sent from earth telling the Universe we exist. Those signals contain such programming as I Love Lucy, War of the Worlds, The Declaration of War against Japan, Marconi’s first radio message sends a message of life even further out. We have also been sending out a lot of information about our Civilization. We have sent info about every aspect of human social and religious aspects, about how we evolved, what our fears are, etc. Yet, for all our brains and engineering feats we only scan the skies for special directed messages. Even advanced civilizations have to evolve through similar stages as we have. Put simply they must at one point have invented radio.
If man’s attempt at First Contact is to have any real meaning we need to have the private sector and the Government searching more than key frequencies that assume a purposeful Contact. 40 or 60 years ago we had no purpose, but our own in sending our signals out. No one thought then about those signals. Why should we assume another civilization would give thought.
On the issue of an Advanced Civilization wanting to Contact us there is a strong assumption of Human motives that an Alien Civilization would not always possess. To put it simply, an advanced civilization would most likely find us not interesting. Why? Because any far Advanced Civilization would have had to learn some hard lessons about not interfering with lesser developed worlds and species, or they advanced by military might. In the first case they would tend towards hands off approach with us. In the second I doubt anyone here would desire contact with such a race given our limited Technology. If anything the movie Independence Day ought to come to mind. And I doubt some earth devised computer virus will save the day. If we truly desire Contact it should be with a race at a level we can actually communicate with.
Given our advances in Science it is highly possible we may find a way in the future to navigate around the velocity of light barrier. When we do we shall also be leaving behind a signature that we have been there. That signal will be in the area of High Energy Photon bursts from a craft in Warp. Their power level will be low against the background of space. However, any such burst within our local area that tracks a pulsed path in rapid time across that area in a linear line should be suspect. It would mark a signal that something is moving faster than it should in normal space-time. A sign of something not naturally occurring. We now have the capability to track and search for just such a signal. This is one area I feel groups like SETI should look into. For more on this check out the following references.
1.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alcubierrewarpdrive2/files/Dual%20Horizons%20%26%20Photon%20Motion.pdf
2.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alcubierrewarpdrive2/files/More%20on%20Photon%20motion.doc
